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Article: When the Earth Dried Out: Geologist's Theory Has Continents Emerging Rapidly From Ocean About a Billion Years Ago.
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- Article date:
- February 7, 2002
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 AScribe. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: University of California, Davis
DAVIS, Calif., Feb. 7 (AScribe Newswire) -- About a billion years ago, the continents emerged relatively suddenly from an ocean that covered 95 percent of the Earth's surface, according to a new theory by Eldridge Moores, a geologist at the University of California, Davis. The appearance of large masses of dry land would have caused more extreme weather, changes in ocean currents and the emergence of proper seasons. In turn, these environmental changes may have led to rise in atmospheric oxygen that enabled the explosion of new life forms around 500 million years ago.
Since the 1960s, geologists have accepted that ...